I will return to consider the next chapters of Conway Morris’s book Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe next week. Today I would like to take a brief detour and consider another question.
Many authors – Dawkins and others – have made popular the idea that religion, belief in God, and morality, among other things are either natural consequences or by-products of survival of the fittest and the preservation of the Selfish Gene. Religion has a purely natural explanation. An article a year or so ago in The New Scientist asserted Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests – described the development of a computer program to simulate and thus explain the development of religion.

Knowing that we are products of Darwinian evolution, we should ask what pressure or pressures exerted by natural selection originally favored the impulse to religion. The question gains urgency from standard Darwinian considerations of economy. Religion is so wasteful, so extravagant; and Darwinian selection habitually targets and eliminates waste. (p. 163)

and later in the chapter he gives his own view – religion is a by-product.

Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival… But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable byproduct is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses. (p. 176)

What role if any does evolution play in the development of religion?

Dawkins’s
language – his use of words – is designed to manipulate. After all who
wants to be slavishly gullible or infected by a mind virus? Who wants to be made a fool – unable to distinguish between good advice (avoid crocodile infested waters) and bad advice (sacrifice a goat – and rain will come)?

But this view is simplistic and limited in scope – evolution, evolvability, and the
gene itself are products of the structure of a finely-tuned universe.
Evolution works within the constraints of the natural universe.

In Weekly Meanderings a while ago Scot linked to an article in Slate Evolution’s place in a created universe.
In
this article William Salaten Saletan takes the ideas advanced by Conway Morris
and considers
other possible ramifications in the development of religion. Salaten
Saletan suggests that religion is a product of natural selection, cultural
evolution, and is also God’s truth. From the end of his article:

Life originally emerged from an
architecture of physical and chemical laws. So natural selection isn’t
the first level of the cosmic order; it’s at least the second or third.
Why should we assume the architecture stops there? …

Natural selection has
become a tremendous tool for understanding biology. But it wasn’t the
first kind of science we invented, and it won’t be the last. The notion
that major components of our society or its development, such as
religion, must be explained
entirely through natural selection is no more scientific than the
notion that they must be explained through physics or chemistry. All of
these sciences, these levels of order, work together. We are physical,
chemical, biologically designed, culturally guided organisms.

If
this complex, multitiered, gradually emerging architecture is the
concept of God we’re heading toward, then yes, God owes plenty to
Darwin. And Darwin owes plenty to God.

What
do you think? Can evolution “explain” religion? More importantly does
such explanation demonstrate that all religions are untrue – or does a
“natural” explanation only point again to God?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail [at] att.net.

Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois). A popular and witty speaker, Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly asked to speak in local churches and educational events throughout the USA and in Denmark and South Africa. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986).

Scot McKnight is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for New Testament Studies. He is the author of more than thirty books, including the award-winning The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (Paraclete, 2004), which won the Christianity Today book of the year for Christian Living. Recent books include Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us (Paraclete, 2005), The Story of the Christ (Baker, 2006), Praying with the Church (Paraclete, 2006), and The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (Paraclete, 2007). A recent book, A Community called Atonement (Abingdon, 2007), has been nominated for the Grawameyer Award. He broadened his Jesus Creed project in writing a daily devotional: 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed (Paraclete, 2008). His studies in conversion were expanded with his newest book, Finding Faith, Losing Faith (Baylor, 2008), a book he co-authored with his former student Hauna Ondrey. His most recent books are The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Zondervan, 2008) and Fasting (Thomas Nelson, 2009).

Forthcoming books include a commentary on James (Eerdmans, 2010). He is presently researching “gospel” in the earliest Christian communities.

Other books include Who Do My Opponents Say I am? (co-edited with Joseph Modica), Jesus and His Death (Baylor, 2005), A Light among the Gentiles (Fortress, 1992), A New Vision for Israel (Eerdmans, 1999), Turning to Jesus (Westminster John Knox, 2002), Galatians (Zondervan, 1993) and 1 Peter (Zondervan, 1996), Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels (Baker, 1988), and he is a co-editor with J.B. Green and I.H. Marshall of the award-winning The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP, 1992) as well as the co-editor, with J.D.G. Dunn, of The Historical Jesus in Current Study (Eisenbraun’s, 2005). He regularly contributes chapter length studies to dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and articles for magazines and online webzines. McKnight’s books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese.

McKnight’s award-winning blog, Jesus Creed, has been rated by Technorati.com as the #1 site for Emerging Church and continues to increase in readership.

Scot McKnight was elected into the Hall of Honor at Cornerstone University in honor of his basketball accomplishments during his college career. He and his wife, Kristen, live in Libertyville, Illinois. They enjoy traveling, long walks, gardening, and cooking. They have two adult children, Laura (married to Mark Barringer) and Lukas (married to Annika Nelson), and one grandchild: Aksel Donovan Nelson McKnight.

Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois). A popular and witty speaker, Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly asked to speak in local churches and educational events throughout the USA and in Denmark and South Africa. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986).

Scot McKnight is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for New Testament Studies. He is the author of more than thirty books, including the award-winning The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (Paraclete, 2004), which won the Christianity Today book of the year for Christian Living. Recent books include Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us (Paraclete, 2005), The Story of the Christ (Baker, 2006), Praying with the Church (Paraclete, 2006), and The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (Paraclete, 2007). A recent book, A Community called Atonement (Abingdon, 2007), has been nominated for the Grawameyer Award. He broadened his Jesus Creed project in writing a daily devotional: 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed (Paraclete, 2008). His studies in conversion were expanded with his newest book, Finding Faith, Losing Faith (Baylor, 2008), a book he co-authored with his former student Hauna Ondrey. His most recent books are The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Zondervan, 2008) and Fasting (Thomas Nelson, 2009).

Forthcoming books include a commentary on James (Eerdmans, 2010). He is presently researching “gospel” in the earliest Christian communities.

Other books include Who Do My Opponents Say I am? (co-edited with Joseph Modica), Jesus and His Death (Baylor, 2005), A Light among the Gentiles (Fortress, 1992), A New Vision for Israel (Eerdmans, 1999), Turning to Jesus (Westminster John Knox, 2002), Galatians (Zondervan, 1993) and 1 Peter (Zondervan, 1996), Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels (Baker, 1988), and he is a co-editor with J.B. Green and I.H. Marshall of the award-winning The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP, 1992) as well as the co-editor, with J.D.G. Dunn, of The Historical Jesus in Current Study (Eisenbraun’s, 2005). He regularly contributes chapter length studies to dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and articles for magazines and online webzines. McKnight’s books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese.

McKnight’s award-winning blog, Jesus Creed, has been rated by Technorati.com as the #1 site for Emerging Church and continues to increase in readership.

Scot McKnight was elected into the Hall of Honor at Cornerstone University in honor of his basketball accomplishments during his college career. He and his wife, Kristen, live in Libertyville, Illinois. They enjoy traveling, long walks, gardening, and cooking. They have two adult children, Laura (married to Mark Barringer) and Lukas (married to Annika Nelson), and one grandchild: Aksel Donovan Nelson McKnight.